Bill Gates hails India’s expertise in public health

Washington: Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates has hailed India's expertise in public health but underlined the need for it to do more in the nutrition and sanitation sector to improve child health and survival. Calling India's public health a “mixed story”, Gates said though it has made progress in almost every area of public health, there is still a long way to go in some areas related to child health. “Well, public health, you know, India's definitely a mixed story where there are some really good, incredible things like the level of expertise in the country and the experts we work with,” Gates said. He now heads the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is engaged in major philanthropic work globally. The Gates Foundation Scientific Advisory Board, he noted, has more people from India than anywhere. “They are super helpful to us. More vaccines are made there than anywhere,” he said. The country that his foundation spends the most on is in India, he added. “And almost everything has improved. I can't think of anything that's gotten worse. But there are things like nutrition and sanitation where India still is — has a lot to do that could improve childhood health and survival pretty dramatically,” Gates said. Responding to a question, Gates said he loves going to India. “Because there’s so many smart people. It’s a vibrant democracy, many voices. There are people like ( Andhra Pradesh) chief minister ( Chandrababu) Naidu that I’ve known for a long time. And, of course he was in power and out of power. But even my Microsoft work gave me a lot of exposure to the deep talent in the country and the incredible potential it has," he explained.